We at Grubb Hub never thought it could hurt more to be a fan of the Denver Broncos than it did after getting drubbed 55-10 by Joe Montana and the San Francisco 49ers in Super Bowl XXIV, their third embarrassing loss of historic proportions in four years.

We never thought our passion could feel more purposeless than the day John Elway announced he had played his last game. As for myself, I had never known what it was like to root for a Broncos team without the best quarterback to ever play the game. Quite frankly, he was the primary reason I became a Broncos fan in the first place.

All those years spent rooting for John to get just one more shot at a Super Bowl, so that he could once and for all prove to the world that indeed, he could win The Big One. And after he finally did – twice – The Duke of Denver mounted his white snorting horse and rode out of town, leaving Bronco fans everywhere to wonder, “Well, what now?”

What’s the main difference between those two events and the recent fiasco resulting in the trade of Jay Cutler to the Chicago Bears? Both of those you could see coming from a mile away. Both of those made some modicum of sense. This makes none.